Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Scoop: Possible media bias in action

...But as is always the case, the media's
double standard is a glaring one. After all, Al Sharpton is a proud and
open Obama supporter, Obama has met with Sharpton, and Obama hasn't
distanced himself from the MSNBC' racial demagogue -- who just this
weekend made headlines with this: Republicans Want To 'Wipe Out Innocent
People' Like 'Hitler's Germany'.

That accusation is very specific, so I looked it up. At that time, only conservative outlets were carrying the story. Here's a fairly complete, well-sourced article quoting Mark Levin. Unless Mark Levin did some nasty editing (as Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod), Al Sharpton said something pretty inflammatory.

Uh, false alarm. I just listened to the whole exchange on Mediaite, and Sharpton is saying that some Republicans condemn
some genocides (like Jews in WWII) but ignore others. Looks like tricky editing to provide red meat to the base... and Mark Levin sounded so calm and persuasive, I fell for it. Oh dear. Thank God I checked a little more before I hit the "Publish" button. And I thought I was going to nail the liberal media on something.

If you're interested, follow the story for a few days. How big does this trumped-up story get? We shall see.

Before digital made fraud easy.

Photo: soundonsound.com

Update 6/1/12. This story has died. That's good, but as a lie and falsification, it never should have been a story at all. Still, I'll remember it as a lesson in the difference between the standards that mainstream media is held to and the standards of someone like Levin. By the way, if some of the links don't work, the story became an embarrassment.

Reflections 6/12/12. To the conservative media, this was going to be a story about the MSM being biased for liberals. Instead, it was really a story about the creation of lies for hungry conservative media outlets, their lack of professionalism in the simple act of checking sources, and their lack of accountability. So far, only Mediaite has corrected the story. None of the conservative sites I reviewed contain a correction. Ah, to be so in the right that nothing you do is wrong. The MSM
didn't catch this story to show the machinations of the conservative
media either. God, I've learned a lot about media bias from this incident. Update 6/4/15. Another example of editing a story dishonestly.